Solar Panel Cost in Spokane, WA 2026: ~19.8-Year Payback
In Spokane, WA, an 8 kW system at $2.55/W produces about 1,195 kWh per kW and pays back in roughly 19.8 years at 11.87¢/kWh with the federal credit at $0.
· Source: EIA Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.A (July 2026 data) · next EIA update ~Oct 23
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- Spokane production
- 1,195 kWh/kW/yr
- Washington average
- 1,045 kWh/kW/yr
- Electricity rate
- 14.7¢/kWh
- 8 kW installed cost
- ~$20,400
- 2026 federal credit
- $0
- Payback (utility math)
- 19.8 years
Why this number
A kilowatt of panels in Spokane produces about 1,195 kWh a year, placing it 2 of 6 among the Washington cities modeled here. The state spans Yakima at 1,320 down to Everett at 999, a 32% span, and Spokane sits inside it at a payback of about 16.5 years.
An 8 kW system in Spokane, priced out
| Metric | Estimate for Spokane | Washington statewide |
|---|---|---|
| Production, unshaded 20° south | 1,195 kWh per kW/yr | 1,045 kWh per kW/yr |
| 8 kW output after a 10% roof derate | ~8,604 kWh/yr | ~7,524 kWh/yr |
| Average residential rate | 14.7¢/kWh (EIA) | 14.7¢/kWh |
| Installed cost, 8 kW | ~$20,400 at $2.55/watt | ~$20,400 |
| 2026 federal credit | $0 | $0 |
| Export rule | Full-retail net metering | Full-retail net metering |
| Export credit modeled | retail (14.7¢/kWh) | retail (14.7¢/kWh) |
| Annual value of that output | ~$1,266 | ~$1,107 |
| Rough payback (your utility) | 19.8 years | 18.5 years (state-average model) |
| 25-year net position | $14,324 | — |
Only the first two rows differ. Everything financial — rate, tariff, price per watt — is inherited from Washington without change, which is the point: a city page that quietly used a different electricity rate from its state page would be guessing, not measuring.
Doing nothing is not free either. Twenty-five years of the electricity an 8 kW Spokane array would produce, with rates rising at 2.5% a year, comes to roughly $43,244.
If a battery is part of the plan, the battery buy vs. TPO calculator prices owning one against a lease or TPO deal.
Run it with your own bill
Shared methodology · identical on every city page
- Production figures are unshaded, south-facing, 20° PVGIS values. A real roof — its own pitch, orientation, a tree or a chimney — typically produces 10–25% less; every payback here already carries a 10% real-roof derate.
- Paybacks include $150/yr of running costs and one $2,000 inverter replacement in year 14, which is why they run longer than paybacks quoted elsewhere.
- State export rules cover investor-owned, state-regulated utilities. Municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives are exempt in most states and set their own terms.
- Installed cost is the state-level EnergySage market figure, not a city quote; a swing of 50¢/W moves payback by roughly a year and a half either way. Get three quotes before trusting any payback — including ours.
Washington is not one solar market
Across the 6 Washington cities with their own modeled figures, production spans 32% — Everett at 999 kWh per kW to Yakima at 1,320. Every column except production is identical down this table: same 14.7¢/kWh retail rate, same export regime, same $2.55/W installed cost. The payback differences are caused by weather and nothing else.
| Location | kWh per kW per year | 8 kW output | Annual value | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yakima | 1,320 | 9,504 kWh | $1,398 | 15.1 yrs |
| Spokane (this page) | 1,195 | 8,604 kWh | $1,266 | 16.5 yrs |
| Seattle | 1,086 | 7,819 kWh | $1,150 | 17.9 yrs |
| Tacoma | 1,046 | 7,531 kWh | $1,108 | 18.5 yrs |
| Bellingham | 1,022 | 7,358 kWh | $1,082 | 18.9 yrs |
| Everett | 999 | 7,193 kWh | $1,058 | 19.2 yrs |
| Washington state average | 1,045 | 7,524 kWh | $1,107 | 18.5 yrs |
Against the state figure, Spokane runs 14% above Washington’s 1,045 kWh per kW — a payback 1.3 years longer than the statewide 18.5-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.
What sets Spokane apart
Eastern Washington is a different climate from the coast entirely: Spokane beats Seattle by more than 100 kWh/kW despite being further north.
Your utility, officially
Washington’s average residential rate is 14.7¢/kWh, but the bill in Spokane comes from Avista Corp at 11.87¢ — 19% below the state figure. These are the residential figures Spokane’s utility reported to the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Form EIA-861 for 2024 — computed as revenue ÷ sales from the official file, not estimated:
| Utility | EIA ID | Residential avg price | Residential customers | Net-metering (residential, self-reported) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avista Corp | 20169 | 11.87¢/kWh | 246,055 | 4425 customers / 27.73 MW |
How exports are treated matters as much as the headline price: Avista Corp is modeled here under the state’s full-retail net metering rules, and that treatment is baked into every payback figure on this page.
Spokane is the odd one out among the Washington cities we cover: it is the only one actually billed by an investor-owned utility headquartered in the state — Avista, whose corporate offices sit in Spokane itself. That distinction is not trivia. Washington’s export-credit statute and the state page’s caveats about investor-owned, state-regulated utilities apply to Avista directly, with no municipal-exemption asterisk. When this site says “Washington credits exports at retail under RCW 80.60, but several utilities have hit the 4% cap and moved to successor tariffs,” Spokane is a city where that sentence is describing your actual utility’s legal situation, and where you should ask Avista specifically which side of the cap it stands on today.
The 2024 EIA-861 numbers: 246,055 residential customers at an average of 11.87¢/kWh — remarkably cheap for an investor-owned utility, cheaper than every city utility on this site except Tacoma Power and Snohomish PUD, both of which are public power. Hydroelectric geography does for eastern Washington what public ownership does for Puget Sound. The catch is familiar from the rest of this state’s pages: cheap power means each solar kilowatt-hour offsets less. Spokane’s production advantage over the coast — more than 100 kWh/kW over Seattle, as the page notes — claws back part of that, making Spokane arguably the best-balanced solar proposition in Washington: second-tier rates but first-tier sun.
Avista’s federal filing shows 4,425 residential net-metered customers and 27.73 MW for 2024 — about one household in fifty-six, with an average system near 6.3 kW. That is a middling adoption rate, ahead of Tacoma, behind Puget Sound Energy’s territory, and it suggests the eastern-Washington sun has not yet fully translated into rooftops.
We could not reach Avista’s website from our infrastructure to verify its current net-metering pages or rate schedules, so nothing here quotes them. What we can say from the state-level record is the shape of the questions to ask: whether Avista still credits exports at full retail or has crossed the statutory threshold that permits a successor tariff; how unused credits are treated at the annual true-up; and which residential rate schedule your house is actually on. Get all three answers from the utility in writing — in a state whose full-retail rule is visibly sunsetting, the answer you get in 2026 may carry a date.
Source: EIA Form EIA-861, 2024 final release , accessed 2026-09-02. Average price is total residential revenue divided by total residential sales for the year — your own rate depends on your tariff and usage tier.
Spokane against the rest of Washington
Same rate, same export rule, same installed price per watt — only the sunshine changes:
| City | kWh per kW | Payback |
|---|---|---|
| Yakima | 1,320 | 15.1 years |
| Spokane | 1,195 | 16.5 years |
| Seattle | 1,086 | 17.9 years |
| Tacoma | 1,046 | 18.5 years |
| Bellingham | 1,022 | 18.9 years |
| Everett | 999 | 19.2 years |
A 32% production span across one state is the reason a single statewide number is only ever a starting point.
What Washington pays Spokane for exported power
Washington credits exported power at the retail rate under RCW 80.60 , so a kilowatt-hour a Spokane array sends to the grid is worth the same as one you buy. That is the best case for solar economics and it is why the payback above is what it is.
It is also the assumption most likely to change. Twenty-two states have already moved to net billing. If Washington did the same on typical terms, this system would take about 26.4 years instead of 19.8 — 6.6 years’ difference from a policy change, with no change to the hardware and none to Spokane’s weather.
Full retail in statute, but several utilities have hit the 4% cap and moved to successor tariffs, so practice is mixed.
Sources and method
- Production: modeled with PVGIS v5.2 PVcalc (European Commission JRC) using the PVGIS-NSRDB radiation database — the same NREL satellite dataset PVWatts draws on for the Americas. Assumptions: 4 kWp, standard c-Si, 14% system loss, roof mounting, 20-degree tilt, due south, horizon shading on. The 1,195 kWh per kW figure for Spokane is a modeled location point, not an interpolation from the Washington average. PVGIS is free to use with JRC attribution requested; the underlying NSRDB is public domain (NREL/DOE).
- Real-roof derate: a separate 10% deduction for azimuth, pitch and shading, applied in the shared model rather than folded into the production data — so you can adjust it if your roof is genuinely unobstructed.
- Electricity rate: U.S. Energy Information Administration, average price by state . This is Washington’s residential average; EIA does not publish a Spokane figure, so the state rate is used and labeled as such.
- Export rules: RCW 80.60 , from our Washington state page and the shared export-rules dataset behind it.
- State average rate: EIA Table 5.6.A, July 2026 data (released Sep 2026), used for every state-average comparison on this page.
- Payback model: shared with the solar savings calculator and the state pages — 2.5%/yr utility inflation, 0.5%/yr degradation, $150/yr running costs, one $2,000 inverter replacement in year 14, federal credit $0. The rest of the toolset — battery, sizing, financing — is under all calculators .
- Incentives: DSIRE . City and utility programs change more often than state ones — check yours directly.
Electricity rate, export regime, production figure and installed cost on this page were last verified on 30 August 2026. Export credits reset on annual tariff cycles and incentive budgets run out mid-year, so treat every figure as a snapshot at that date and confirm current terms before acting. Nothing here is tax or financial advice.
Frequently asked questions
How much do solar panels cost in Spokane in 2026?
About $20,400 for a typical 8 kW system at $2.55 per watt, before any incentive. With the federal credit at $0 in 2026 that is close to your net cost. Note that the price per watt is a Washington market average — there is no reliable city-level cost data, so treat it as a starting point and get three quotes.
What is the solar payback in Spokane?
Roughly 19.8 years on this model, using Spokane’s own production figure of 1,195 kWh per kW and its own utility tariff (11.87¢/kWh) with each utility’s real export treatment. That includes $150 a year of running costs and one inverter replacement, which many published paybacks leave out.
Is Spokane better or worse for solar than the rest of Washington?
Against the state figure, Spokane runs 14% above Washington’s 1,045 kWh per kW — a payback 1.3 years longer than the statewide 18.5-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.
Is solar worth it in Spokane in 2026?
At 14.71¢/kWh and 1,195 kWh per kW, an 8 kW system in Spokane pays back in about 16.5 years on this model. Treat that as a starting point for reading real quotes rather than as a quote: your roof’s orientation, its shading and the price you are actually offered will move it more than your city does.
How we calculated this
Year-1 saving = production (kW × the city’s modeled kWh per kW) × the blended kWh value (retail rate for self-use, the state export rule for exports). Payback = net cost ÷ year-1 saving, with the federal credit at $0 for 2026 purchases and cost per watt from the state’s installed-price band. Production is modeled from PVGIS/NSRDB irradiance for the city.Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) electricity rates · DSIRE incentive records · public IRS/OBBBA guidance. Figures are modeled estimates, not quotes or tax advice. See our methodology.
Compare with the rest of Washington
- Solar panel cost in Washington — The statewide picture: Washington’s rate, incentives, export rules and the 1,045 kWh per kW average this page corrects.
- Solar panel cost in Yakima — 1,320 kWh per kW and a 15.1-year payback — better than Spokane on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Seattle — 1,086 kWh per kW and a 17.9-year payback — worse than Spokane on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Tacoma — 1,046 kWh per kW and a 18.5-year payback — worse than Spokane on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Bellingham — 1,022 kWh per kW and a 18.9-year payback — worse than Spokane on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Everett — 999 kWh per kW and a 19.2-year payback — worse than Spokane on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Pittsburgh — 1,186 kWh per kW in Pennsylvania — the closest production match to Spokane in our data.
- Solar panel cost in Cleveland — 1,209 kWh per kW in Ohio — the closest production match to Spokane in our data.
- All city solar figures — The 66 US cities with their own modeled production data, and the spreads between them.